FINAL SOLIDARITY WEEKEND COMING UP

SOLIDARITY is open 11am - 5pm Fri-Sun Sunday 18th June

Curated by Akil Ahamat, Sarah Fitzgerald, Delilah Lyses-sApo and Alexandra Mitchell, Solidarity shows the work of sixteen current and recent students of Sydney College of the Arts, National Art School, UNSW Art & Design and UTS. The exhibition demonstrates the need to secure the diversity of art education in Sydney. Throughout the duration of the exhibition sixteen artists will use the project space as their studio space, working in sixteen mini studio spaces. The studios are open to the public who are invited in to see the process of art making, to talk with the artists and to see the final work at the Closing Party on Saturday 17th June from 6-8pm. 

SATURDAY 17th JUNE

4-5pm: Performance: Mending the Memory Gap #3 - Stella Chen.

5:30-5:45pm: Performance: Matter and Musical Motion (plate bells, piano and voce) - Marta Ferracin with Kim Cunio and Heather Lee: Kim Cunio and Heather Lee will play with plate bells and intervals of piano and voce to generate a cosmic musical motion inspired by the concept of growing found in nature. The cyclic nature of the music is designed to mirror the organic motion happening in the installation itself. 

6.15pm Address by local Greens NSW MP, Jamie Parker

7 pm: Performance by Liz Hogan 

6-8pm: CLOSING PARTY

THE ARTISTS PARTICIPATING:

SCA - Kalanjay Dhir, Marta Ferracin, Delilah Lyses-sApo, Sophie Suttonberg

NAS  -  Dominic Byrne, Sarah Fitzgerald, Elizabeth Hogan, Elizabeth Rankin

UNSW A&D  -  Stella Chen, Alexandra Mitchell, Caoife Power, Douglas Schofield
UTS  -  Akil Ahamat, Ayesha Wasique, Kristina Savic, Rathai Manivannan

Photos Alexandra Mitchell

SOLIDARITY artists' studios

One of the things Marta Ferracin is doing in her SOLIDARITY studio is working out how to grow single cells Physarum Polycephalum (slime mold) by protecting them from light and bacteria. She is also working with sound that resonates the concept of growing found in nature. Find out more about this on Saturday 10 June at 2.30 - 3.30pm (see program in earlier post). Photo: Marta Ferracin

SOLIDARITY - EXHIBITION EXPLANATION

There is no stability without solidarity and no solidarity without stability.

-Jose Manuel Barroso (2010)

 There has been much disruptive rumour and speculation about the future of the art schools in Sydney and this has resulted in an overwhelming feeling that an arts education is undervalued and unsupported by current governments. Threats of closures and mergers have led to an atmosphere of uncertainty that makes it almost impossible for both academics and students to function let alone thrive as they should. 

(Image credit – Sarah Fitzgerald, ‘Visions of utopia: Bauhaus’)

Studios are a vital part of an art education and the community of an art school. The studio is a place where creative freedom is supported within a challenging, academically critical environment and this is where an arts community, that continues beyond art school, is established. 

(Image credit –Sarah Fitzgerald, ‘Dividing the space’)

Throughout the duration of Solidarity, Articulate project space downstairs gallery will be converted into sixteen studio spaces. Tape will be used to divide the gallery into studio spaces. How each studio space is inhabited will be up to the discretion of each artist and collective. Some artists may choose to use the space as a studio, some as an exhibition space and others may simply leave their space empty.

By focusing on the studio, Solidarity seeks to address what is lost amidst the current rumour and speculation about the future of the art schools of Sydney. What is lost? It is time. Time in the studio to think and contemplate. Time to make mistakes. Time to have breakthroughs. And ultimately – time to focus on art and the creation of art.  

In conjunction with the exhibition there will be will be a program of events including a talk (that will focus on the current uncertainty and instability of Sydney's art schools and meditate on what needs to be done in order to ensure the security and diversity of art education in Sydney for the future) and a day of performance art. Program details will be released shortly.

It is hoped that this exhibition will be the start of fruitful collaboration between current and past art school students of Sydney and that future exhibitions will occur, Solidarity simply the first of many to come.